Target Audience

When films are attempting to identify their target audience they begin by brainstorming around five ideal movie fan categories that their movie could appeal to. Their next vital step is to understand and get to know their audience, this is important so that they know what needs to be included in their films/advertisements for films that will actually attract the correct group of people. They have to think of a few questions, such as; Who are these people? Are they primarily men? Women? Teenagers? Do they have jobs? Are they business owners or unemployed? What is the average income? Are they college educated? Do they live in the city or on the farm?From this information, they can create audience profiles for five ideal types of movie fans that you want to target, and eventually work up to deciding their primary target audience that, especially with a lower budget, will have to be quite specific. They then have to focus on figuring out why that group of people should watch their movie figuring out why these people enjoy your genre. They have to consider another load of questions like; Why would they want to watch your movie? What makes your movie unique from the other, competing movies in existence? How will your movie to appeal to viewing needs of your audience?

Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite has the same sub genre as the film my group and I intend on making. Their primary target audience are 12-17 males. A lot of teen films would be targeted at slightly older than 12 but Napoleon Dynamite was made a PG, opening up the possibility of their secondary target audience containing younger children. Due to the lack of black characters, and the fact that the main character is white American, their movie would be targeted more so towards white Caucasians in America (secondarily to other countries). As it's a fairly low budget film, the target audience would fit into C2-E on the social grade scale.
Psychographic wise, using Young and Rubican's ideas, they would fall into the category of aspirers. These are materialistic, acquisitive people, who are driven by others' perception of them rather than their own values. Their core need in life is status. A common convention of teen comedies is a nerd desperate to become cool, meaning that predominantly their films will be targeted to people in this category. The lifestyle categories they'd fit into are groupies (wanting to be accepted) and trendies (desperate for admiration from peer group). This is because they will more likely relate to the main character, as the main character is usually a similar image to the primary target audience of the film (or an image of whom they wish to be). Their values would place them into the contented conformers social value group- they want to be 'normal' so follow the herd. Nerds are typically in this category, making the main character once again relate to the target audience.

Mean Girls

Mean girls is quite a different teen comedy to Napoleon Dynamite- rather than the narrative revolving around a nerd, it tells another typical high school story, but of mean girls. Their primary target audience is 13-18 females. Their secondary target audience would be slightly older males or females, and possibly younger girls although it is a PG-13 so would require parental guidance. Once again it's an American film so is targeted towards people living in that area that are white Caucasian due to the incredible lack of black characters (despite being in an America high school of which are usually quite mixed in racial terms). Mean Girls had a much higher budget than Napoleon Dynamite ($17million vs. $400,000), meaning their target audience could have a higher range of social classes, from C1-E. Using Young & Rubican's psychographic groups, their target audience would be classified under reformers, as the film's narrative revolves around a girl eventually stops caring about being popular. Reformers will relate to the resolution of the film, who's core need in life is enlightenment. Just like Napoleon Dynamite, the lifestyle categories their target audience would fall into are groupies and trendies. Despite the main character finding enlightenment at the end, most of the film involves her attempting to fit and receive acceptance and admiration from her peers- making her character relate to people in these groups. Values wise their target audience would be in the strivers category- they attach importance to image and status. By attracting this particular audience, it also helps emphasise the films moral about being yourself.

I learnt that teen comedies are, obviously, targeted towards the same age group, but when targeted towards different genders their layout is completely different (a main difference in the colour palette surprisingly). Social class wise, teen comedies don't aim for extremely high income families, and are targeted usually towards people with the psychographics of wanting to be accepted.

Survey Monkey

I ensured that my questionnaire was taken primarily by my target audience- teenage females. When sending them the questionnaire I gave them the basic idea of our film. Most go to the cinema quite often, with none of them only watching films at home. Surfing, school and so much drama won a majority of votes as the most appropriate title for our film, and upbeat instrumental won by a landslide for the music expected in the title sequence. The narrative with the most votes is a teenager overcoming bullies, which is very useful as because the survey was given to our target audience we now know what narrative they would find most interesting. For the last question, the audience ad the option to select as many options as they wished. Pink/purple won the majority, with white also being a popular choice. When making our film we will definitely take these answers into consideration, as the people who answered are the people who our film is targeted towards and we need it to be effective.

My target audience

My primary target audience will be females aged between 13-18. Secondarily it could be targeted towards males, or females slight younger/older. As it's filmed in Cornwall, we'll be targeting it towards Cornish white Caucasians (as around 95% of Cornish people fit into this racial group, it's much more effective to have it primarily targeted towards them). Their social grade would be C2-E, mainly because once again Cornish people are primarily quite similar and don't make much income. Also our primary target audience will be students, which is the same for every teen comedy.
Using Young & Rubican's psychographic groups, my target audience would fall into the aspirers category- their core need in life is for status. This will relate them to the main character, as the narrative will revolve around her attempting desperately to fit in. The lifestyle categories they would be a part of are the exact same as the two films audience profiles I analysed- groupies and trendies, with a want to be accepted by those around them and are desperate for admiration from their peers. The value group they would come in to are strivers, which is the same as Mean Girls due to the fact our film has a similar narrative. Their value group, along with the lifestyle category they're a part of will relate to the main character.